White Like Bone
by Queen Lua
Summary: Volug clenched his jaw. It unnerved him, how Nailah wouldn't meet his eyes—she'd never failed to do that before.


_Many thanks to amielleon for betaing._

* * *

Queen Nailah spoke only in certainties. In her mind, every decision she made was obvious, a foregone conclusion: of _course_ that idiot Abeni ought to be dismissed from duty for her blunder in Tabora, or of _course_ she would go to Hatari's northern border personally to deal with that pesky pack of rebels; the capital could handle itself for a while, surely?

Her best advisers learned this quickly. Their role was not to advise, whatever they had been told: they were merely to inform and execute. If Nailah asked about the state of affairs in some border-town to the east, they'd best know all the details and recite them—though not _too_ many details; otherwise she'd get bored and stop listening halfway through. And if Nailah said she needed some rogue criminal "taken care of," then she certainly didn't want to hear that name spoken ever again. And the moment anyone thought themselves clever enough to tell the queen what she ought to do—why, that was the very moment she'd laugh in their face, or worse, point out some bleedingly obvious flaw in their little suggestion, making them into a fool in front of all the court.

So when the queen burst into Volug's quarters one morning, just before daybreak, and said, "Volug, come help me pack; we're leaving," he knew better than to question why she'd come to him so early, or the wisdom of such an abrupt departure; he asked only for the barest of facts. "Where are we going?"

"Across the desert," she said, tossing him a satchel stuffed with waterskins. "And not just us. Rafiel, too."

Rafiel? Rafiel, that strange heron with the bone-pale skin and the jewel-bright eyes? Certainly, the queen seemed to dote on her little shadow, but the ventures they shared were generally of a more docile variety: strolls in the palace gardens, or trips to countryside festivals. Volug certainly never imagined she would haul the heron across some desert. So he ventured another question: "Which desert?"

"That one," she said, gesturing vaguely west.

West. Volug felt hairs prickling on the back of his neck. Only one desert lay that way, and all in Hatari knew its name: "The Desert of Death." His voice was flat, but there was a question in his eyes.

"What—don't tell me you're frightened, Volug?" Nailah scoffed. But even she must've sensed something faintly preposterous in her command; she folded an arm across her chest and bit her lip, letting her gaze drift before adding, "Rafiel's home is across there. He says something's calling him back. So we'll be accompanying him."

Volug clenched his jaw. It unnerved him, how Nailah wouldn't meet his eyes—she'd never failed to do that before. Suddenly he wanted to ask—ask all those questions of the sort he never asked. Why leave now? or, how did Rafiel know where to go? or, what made her think they wouldn't end up dead in the sand? But Nailah, brisk as always, didn't give him the time. "I've some other matters to attend to," she announced, "I'll return shortly." Then she disappeared out the door once more, quickly as she'd come.

* * *

Defeated in the third day of the _preshnatta_. It was a respectable performance, Volug reminded himself, respectable by anyone's standards. On the first day of the tournament, no one had expected him to last past the first morning—he was just another scrappy, nameless, fresh-faced warrior from the outskirts of Hatari, scarcely more than a pup. There were hundreds of others just like him who had poured into the capital, hoping to prove their worth in this gauntlet; what made him any different?

But then his first three matches had been faultless victories, with not a scratch on him; the bettors went wild. Then, when he lost to the beorc swordsman Naur, those same bettors turned bitter: that cheating snake, they murmured among themselves; Naur must have planted the sand-spikes that made Volug limp during their match, that nearly made him go lame.

Volug knew that was the truth—but what was to be done for it? He had no proof, and he would not be some pup, throwing a tantrum over a sparring-game that had already passed.

So he'd stalked out of the arena on his own, pondering nothing more than what inn to stay in that night before leaving in the morning—and _that_ was when he'd met her. "You fought well out there."

He'd only ever glimpsed her from afar, but when he turned to look at her, she was unmistakable—neck wreathed in gold, her silvery hair falling wild and unkempt around her neck. Her tattoos were all curves and curls; his eyes followed their paths from her hands to her shoulders, followed the contour of her legs—

"You _do_ talk, don't you?"

Volug startled; he hadn't meant to gawp. "I... I was... Queen Nailah?"

She chuckled. "The very same." She stepped closer, her eyes flickering over his own figure, staring, scrutinizing—he felt himself stand straighter. "I do wonder, though—how would you fare in a real fight?"

Then she shifted wolf and dove for him.

Volug had never seen anyone shift so quickly before; he staggered back, just barely missing being caught by her jaws. _What, why_—he didn't understand, but instinct served him well; on pure impulse he shifted wolf as he fell back. She was relentless—for a long while all he could do was skip around to dodge her blows; she came at him too quickly for any parrying or feinting on his part. Once or twice he tried to snap at a hind paw, too deeply entrenched in battle-frenzy to consider the absurdity of what he was doing (snapping at the _queen_!), but she always twisted away just in time. At some point they clashed, head-on, and he felt as strong as he ever had, diving at her shoulder with one ferocious snap that struck true—

Even so, she overwhelmed him in seconds, pinning him hard against the ground, her white sun-bright fur bristling, her jaws suspended a half-inch above his throat. Her breath was hot against him; he could scarcely breathe for how heavy she was against his chest. Then she smiled, pulling her jaws away; slowly she shifted back, until it was not claws but fingers that held him, fingers that had dug deeply into his fur, grasping him around the shoulders.

"Quick reflexes," she said, pulling away and brushing herself off as she stood. "I like that." Volug shifted human again, pulling himself off the ground. Then she asked him: "Would you like to join my guard, Volug?"

That was it—that was what this had been about? He was struck dumb at the question. He had just lost in the _preshnatta_, hadn't he? —even if she'd sensed that Naur had been cheating, what had been remarkable enough in his performance to draw her interest?

She smiled at his silence. "Don't look so bashful. Come to the palace tomorrow; we'll get you sorted out then."

Volug watched her as he went, as if transfixed—he couldn't pull his eyes away from the thin arcs of those tattoos, the sureness of her strides.

* * *

Being near Rafiel made Volug anxious.

It was a strange thing for him to realize—he'd known Rafiel for years now, ever since he and Nailah had found him half-dead in the sand, and he had never felt unsettled around him before. But neither had he been around Rafiel and Nailah alone, so closely, for so long.

For a long while, the court had thought Nailah's seeming affection for the heron strange and unnatural—oughtn't she spend more time among the wolves? what did she see in that skinny furless thing? But then someone had suggested that Queen Nailah was merely treating Rafiel as some sort of pet, or a favorite bard—keeping him close, but certainly never regarding him as an equal—and most imagined this as the truth, and were contented.

Volug had imagined that, as well. But the way he saw them out here, he wasn't so sure. There was a closeness between the two of them—Volug could see it in the way Nailah curved her neck to smile at Rafiel, in the way Rafiel arced his wings whenever Nailah drew close, in the wordless glances they exchanged. Nailah could be capricious, Nailah could be impulsive—but no mere impulse or amusement could drive her out here, Volug knew.

They could not move too quickly, lest Rafiel fall behind or, while riding on his or Nailah's back, fall off. That was part of it, too, the anxiousness—this laggard's pace made Volug edgy, made him strain and twitch in the lead. If he had to be in this dreaded desert, he wanted to be out of it as quickly as possible.

"That way," Rafiel called softly from atop Nailah's back, gesturing a few degrees to the south.

That was the last part of his anxiousness, the most galling part—this strange source of guidance. Perhaps hearing voices was a common thing wherever Rafiel had come from, but Hatari as a whole had little patience for fortune-tellers, and Volug counted himself among them. Was Rafiel truly to be their guide? —this pale, sickly-looking thing, who jumped whenever Volug so much as barked too loud?

Volug glanced at Nailah and wondered that she could be so calm. She'd left behind her whole kingdom—and yet she moved for all the world as if this were just some casual morning romp.

* * *

Nailah played favorites among her guardsmen. She did so openly, without reservation—she had dozens of guards, after all, but she only needed a small handful around her at any given moment. So, week by week, she'd rotate them out, or keep them by her side, as her mood dictated, while the favorites kept their spots.

And somehow, Volug had become a favorite.

It must be, Volug had thought wryly, that the Queen was so fond of talking, and he was so fond of listening—she came to him often, pondering aloud about this issue or that. At some point, she dismissed her right-hand guard—for what reason was anyone's guess. Perhaps he'd performed poorly, or perhaps she'd simply grown bored of him—but, after he left, suddenly Volug found himself in his place, most trusted of all the guardsmen.

—of course Volug had held affection for the queen. Who hadn't, among the dozens of wolves in her royal guard? It was an ever-recurring topic among them: they would gloat over any bit of personal praise she doled out, or squabble over whom she might take as her husband (_if_ she would take a husband at all). Occasionally, one wolf or another would have the gall to confess his love to her directly, and she turned them each down—not always politely. Oh, she wasn't _cruel_, truly; more like she was oblivious. "Sahar, really?" she'd say, laughing at one wide-eyed would-be suitor. "I hardly think it'd be fitting, don't you? Now run and fetch those ambassadors from the antechamber for me; I must speak with them."

Slobbering little pups, they must've looked like, Volug knew now. Nailah was queen, the strongest, fastest, and sharpest of them all; what made them think they could impress _her_?

And he knew in his heart that the same question could be asked of him.

So he'd laid his own stirrings aside, in time. Nailah was his queen; he was her guard. He was content with that honor alone, more than content.

But now, as he watched Rafiel and Nailah settling in to sleep, in these abandoned ruins that Rafiel's voice had led them to, Volug couldn't help but feel those old jealous stirrings rising once more. Rafiel had a wing draped across the queen (for warmth, ostensibly), and they were murmuring to each other—about what, Volug couldn't discern, since they spoke so quickly and softly in that ugly common tongue. But the mere indecipherability of it irked him; he felt his fur bristling despite himself.

Suddenly, Nailah laughed—the noise startled Volug, and he jerked his head upright. But it was just laughter; she was giving Rafiel a playful shove. The laughter tapered off, and then they were muttering in that common tongue again. Snorting, Volug turned away from the pair, burying his face in his paws and forcing himself asleep.

* * *

Two weeks into the journey, they woke to the scent of sweat and iron.

"You smell it too, Volug?" Nailah said as Volug stirred. Then, to Rafiel, as explanation: "Beorc, just a little ways south of here." Nailah rose quickly, dusting herself off. "Let's go to them."

"Let me come," Rafiel said.

"No, Rafiel," Volug grunted, "you should stay back." Iron meant weapons, meant danger.

But Nailah whirled on Volug: "Don't be rude," she snapped, giving him a scolding look. Then, to Rafiel: "Of course you can come. Just stay close to me."

"My queen—" Volug began to protest. Surely she, of all people, understood the risks of bringing along someone as delicate as Rafiel? But she fixed him with a sharp glare, and Rafiel was already clinging to her side, so he fell silent.

Together, the three of them found the scent's source quickly enough: four vague little shapes, all beorc men, hauling a slough of cargo behind them, hiking heavily through the sand.

"You beorc," Queen Nailah called as they approached. "Where do you hail from?"

The four men exchanged glances, and the tallest of them answered: "We hail from nowhere," he said. "Nomads. Traders."

"The swords they're holding look like Begnion," Rafiel whispered to Nailah.

The tall nomad overheard Rafiel: "Begnion, eh?" he chuckled. "Sure, we do some dealings with Begnion, from time to time. But we're too far east to be ruled by them." A pause—then, to Rafiel, "You're a heron?"

Nailah edged protectively in front of the heron.

"I'd thought you lot were all dead," the nomad said. Then, to one of his companions, "What kind of price do you think he'd fetch from the right senator? You still keep up with that Oliver bloke, don'tcha?"

Nailah's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Sure I do," the other nomad said. He was staring at Nailah, but somehow he missed the warning in her eyes. "Hey you—step away from him, won't you? We'll take good care of him."

"You're not touching him," Nailah snapped.

"How about a trade?" the tall nomad suggested. "We've got gold."

Nailah offered only a throaty snarl in response.

"The hard way, then," the tall one said, reaching for his sword.

Nailah was wolf-shifted and pouncing on the tall nomad before he could so much as draw his blade. Volug dove in as well—but everywhere he could think to go, Nailah was there first. She went for the tall one, so he dove at the man drawing a machete behind her—but she whirled and crushed her fangs into his throat just before Volug could reach him. So he went for a third nomad, but Nailah got to him, too, with a frenetic blur of slashing and snarling.

It was over in seconds. The only one left standing was the youngest of the nomads, a thin, scrappy thing. Nailah, from atop one shredded corpse, blood still dripping from her dampened muzzle, snarled and snapped her jaws in warning. The young man shrieked and started sprinting away; Nailah didn't take her eyes off of him until he disappeared into the horizon.

Then she turned and stepped off the corpse, shifting human once more and stalking toward the cargo that had been left behind. "Disgusting," she spat, rooting through the bags. "And are these the sort of men who captured you before?" She turned to glance at Rafiel over her shoulder, then turned away again, clenching her teeth and snarling so loudly that for a moment Volug thought she had shifted wolf again. But she hadn't; she was still rifling through the beorc belongings. "I ought to have snapped the spine of that last one, too."

She tossed the beorcs' things behind her as she rifled through them—waterskins, slabs of dried meat, and bits of rubbish. But one item in particular drew Volug's eyes: a set of chains, falling heavily into the sand, made of cold iron with thick cuffs at each end. He glanced over at Rafiel; he was eying the chains as well, and his expression was stiff, his face even paler than usual. Volug looked back to the chains once more, and a shudder ran through him.

* * *

Nailah was the first to fall asleep that night—soon as they arrived at the ruined temple, she slipped in and collapsed on the floor, not even bothering to shift out of her wolf form.

Volug tried to sleep, too, but it was slow in coming. His mind kept circling back over those shackles, like a vulture over a rotted carcass; he wondered at the simple barbarity of them. Slavery was a thing that had happened once, ages ago, in Hatari's past; seeing something like that lying in the sand made him think he was traveling back through time—back to a darker time.

At some point, he glanced up and was surprised to find Rafiel still awake as well, sitting upright. Volug met his gaze, and Rafiel smiled, but they said nothing.

Volug turned away once more, and his vulture-mind went back to those musings. And after a while—a long while, maybe even hours—when he finally couldn't stand the musings anymore, the circling, the silence, he finally spoke: "You were a slave?"

Rafiel seemed to startle at the suddenness of the question, at the roughness of Volug's voice, but he answered as demurely as ever: "Yes, I was."

Nailah had never mentioned that to him before. "Why would they take you for a slave?" he asked, edging closer to the heron. "You have such skinny legs and such weak arms."

If Rafiel was offended, he didn't show it, though he was slow to answer. "We herons, I'm told, are considered the most beautiful of the laguz. And the rarest." Rafiel paused, as if that were explanation enough—but Volug's brow furrowed. He still didn't understand. "To possess one of us is a status symbol," Rafiel went on. "Like possessing a fine piece of art."

Volug scowled. "Then they should buy paintings," he said, bullish. "That is what paintings are for. What fool beorc thinks slaveowning is some point of pride?"

Rafiel didn't answer; he just frowned, letting his gaze settle on the floor.

Volug snorted and shook himself. "And is this common? In that place across the desert?"

"Common enough," Rafiel replied, and for the first and only time Volug heard something like bitterness marring that strange, delicate voice.

The silence that fell between them was heavy, heavier than it had even been before. Volug could only stand it for a few seconds before he growled, "I would never be a slave." Behind him, he flicked his tail anxiously, and his eyes were wide like a hare's. "I would never let them capture me. I would die fighting before they could take me."

"I believe you," Rafiel answered. His voice sounded so calm, right after Volug's, which had been all simmering and snarling. "That's why Nailah chose you, I'm sure. As her guard, I mean. She relies on you a great deal, you know."

The suddenness and the unexpectedness of that statement struck Volug silent.

Rafiel fingered one of the tassels on his robe, pursing his lips thoughtfully. Volug watched him, frowning. _Why go back?_ he wanted to know. If the beorc there were brutes and slavers, if they were like those men in the desert, with only savagery in them—why go back?

But just then, Rafiel's gaze shifted to the sleeping Nailah, and Volug let the question go unasked. Rafiel was going back because a voice was leading him, and because Nailah was beside him, and because he trusted that voice and Nailah both—trusted them in such an open, calm, unyielding way—a sort of trust and faithfulness that left Volug baffled, even for all his years of loyatly and service to the Queen.

* * *

That voice Rafiel heard—was it anything like his own?

He'd taken to singing as they lay around the fireside at night: strange, lilting little melodies that rose and fell on unsteady beats, with dozens of dissonant twists, nothing at all like Hatarian music. Nailah loved them ("Sing another, Rafiel"), but to Volug's didn't care for them at all. Mostly he just ignored them; whenever he happened to focus too closely on a melody he could feel his fur prickling. Odd as they were, he could sense a power hidden in them.

Rafiel was singing on the night Micaiah arrived, too. Nailah had been half-dozing to the melody when the strange silver-haired girl burst in; for a moment Volug just stared at her. Then he gave Nailah a nudge, and both of them moved to stand protectively around Rafiel. Better not to take chances after their last encounter.

But then she told them: "I heard a voice that guided me here as well."

More voices! and Volug couldn't help but snort with laughter; what absurd sort of land was it where pale half-beorc girls and crippled herons found each other this way?

* * *

After they'd spoken with Micaiah, once they'd broken bread with her and learned of Rafiel's family, of course Nailah would want to help them. She was just that way.

But Micaiah bit her lip at the proposal; how could they fight alongside laguz? They pondered aloud, straining for a solution—but Volug already knew an answer.

Rafiel needed to go on to Serenes—and Nailah, he knew, needed to go with him. She had trusted that voice all along; she ought to see what would come of it. And of course she needed to guard him, flightless as he was.

But as for Volug himself—where was he needed?

That day against the slavers—he hadn't been needed there, not really. Nailah had been ferocious as he'd ever seen her; she'd moved like a sand-twister. She'd tear down a hundred, ten hundred of them, before she'd let them touch her Rafiel.

And she needed Rafiel, too, much as he needed her. For what, or why, or how, he didn't know—but he sensed it how she fought, how she moved, how she spoke and laughed when he was near.

But she needed someone here, too—she needed someone to stand by Micaiah, needed a warrior in her stead. And he, at least, could be that: "I'll stay," he announced abruptly.

"Mm?" Nailah cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Like this," he said, and took his half-shift form: still wolfish, but his frame was lighter, and his teeth were dulled. He forced a wry smile at his queen.

She smiled back—almost too broadly; Volug felt himself wince. "Perfect," she said. She spoke to Micaiah then. Volug only barely heard the words; his eyes now were on Rafiel. The heron had an odd, strained expression on his face; his eyes were intense as they met Volug's. He remembered, vaguely, that herons had a sense for thoughts and feelings of others; could Rafiel sense that now? the twist in his gut?

Then Nailah turned to Volug again: "Guard her well."

As she left him, the sky was charcoal-tinted and the wind was whirling, drawing little tufts of sand from the ground. Volug watched her as she went—she and Rafiel both, bright-white against the sand. Guard her well, he thought at the heron's retreating figure—then forced himself to look away as the wind howled in his ears


End file.
